Guns

Minimum Competency for Defensive Pistol – Revisited Again

/ hsoi

I just re-read an article from Claude Werner on “Practice priorities for the Armed Citizen“. (h/t Greg Ellifritz). As I was reading it, it reminded me of my article series on “Minimum Competency for Defensive Pistol“. I did revisit the series a few months back, but Claude’s article gave me a few more things to think about, and perhaps revise/refine in my suggestions for practice and skills progression.

Claude speaks about a progression, a “where do I go from here?” sort of thing. Claude offers his own suggestions, like the NRA Defensive Pistol Qualification. But what really got me was pointing out a key problem most people have when it comes to live fire practice:

Most people have to limit their livefire practice to indoor ranges where drawing from the holster is not allowed. This presents an issue to those who carry pistol in holsters. There are solutions, though.

Indeed this is a problem. I’ve gotten quite spoiled at KR Training and with the host of good ranges around Austin where you can do things like practice drawing from a holster. Of course, there are still those people that go to one of the local indoor ranges that have these restrictions, and of course others around the country tend to have these restrictions as well. I overlooked that reality. Claude offers:

Like many of my colleagues, for a long time I said the hard part of the drawstroke is establishing grip. I’ve changed my opinion on that. The hard part of the drawstroke is getting the pistol indexed on the target enough to get a good hit with the first shot. John Shaw, a World Champion shooter, clued me in to this many years ago. Note that I didn’t say a ‘perfect’ hit.

Indexing the pistol to the target (presentation) is easily practiced from a high ready position starting at the pectoral muscle of the body’s dominant side. Starting this way is not generally a problem at an indoor range. And since I recommend practicing one shot per presentation, the ‘no rapid fire’ limitation at many indoor ranges isn’t an issue either.

This is one of those smack your head because you wish you could have had a V-8 sort of moments. What Claude writes is so true. The press-out, the presentation, whatever you want to call it, it’s the hardest part and such a vital skill. When you draw? You then must press-out. After a reload? You must press out. Clear a malfunction? You must press out. The press out is such a vital skill (it’s a key thing stressed in so many of the KR Training courses). And yes, you can practice this at the indoor ranges. You can start from that high, compressed ready position (step 3 of the 4-step drawstroke), and press out and break one shot. While you might end up eventually moving fast in doing this, your single-shots will still be “slow” relative to each other (i.e. you’re not double-tapping) and thus no range rules broken. So so so true, and so important.

Thank you Claude for my “V-8 moment”. Regardless if you take a progression like Claude recommends or I recommend, the underlying issue remains the same: that you’ll use some particular course of fire (e.g. TX CHL test), assess your skills, then focus on improving the areas you identified as weak. For example, my last live-fire practice session I shot numerous drills not so much to shoot the drills (i.e. throw lead in a semi-organized manner), but to exercise the fundamental skills I consider important and identify what I was doing well and what I needed work on. I saw I needed to move faster, and doing a lot of one-shot draws are in my future. So yes, working that press-out is in my future.

Another thing Claude touched on.

…to get a good hit with the first shot…. Note that I didn’t say a ‘perfect’ hit.

Also:

What I like about it most is that it is a 100 percent standard, not 70 or 80 percent like a qualification course. We need to accustom ourselves to the concept that if we shoot at a criminal, ALL the rounds we fire must hit the target. That’s being responsible.

These remind me of my concept of “(un)acceptable hit“. I just prefer that phrasing over “good hit” or “miss”, because like Claude said, it’s not necessarily a “perfect” hit. It’s also understanding that all the rounds must hit what we need it to hit; we must make acceptable hits.

Thanx, Claude!

Shootin’ practice

/ hsoi / 15 Comments

Got to do some live fire practice.

It was telling. sigh

Started with the Farnam Drill, cold. Whoa, I’ve gotten slow. My accuracy was spot on, but I was just too damn slow. As well, the auto-forward “feature” of the M&P continues to irritate me. I opted to just let it go, then the gun proceeded to go “click” because it didn’t put one in the chamber. Sorry, but this is not a feature unless it’s 100% reliable, and it’s not. I actually had a serious thought about switching to a Glock 19 and being done with it. Seriously.

Ran Karl’s current version of “3 Seconds or Less“. Was doing great until I pulled the one-handed shots. Dang it.

Shot the first stage of the IDPA Classifier. That went alright. My transitions were, you guessed it, slow. Slow was the theme of the day. I got better tho. Certainly was much faster here than I was when I started.

So I wound up shooting a bunch of Bill Drills at 3 and 7 yards. My goal was to just push myself and watch the front sight bounce. I wanted to get faster, push myself faster faster faster. I was hitting .33 or so splits at 7 yards (ugh) but had a really good cadence and all A-zone hits. I pushed myself and got down to .25 splits, with good cadence and all A-zone hits. See? That’s what I needed. I also started around like a 2 second concealment draw and got down to like a 1.5 concealment and a 1.3 open carry draw.

Finished up with some slow-fire group shooting.

A lot came down to some simple things:

  1. Just go faster, damnit. I can go faster, it’s not above the speed I can go. But I’ve always been a “mosey” kind of guy, and I just need to go faster. This is mostly about just physically being faster (i.e. sprint, don’t mosey). But it’s also mental: to let/allow myself go faster. To push myself faster because….
  2. No matter how much I know better, my brain still wants to see more than it needs to, in terms of sight picture. That’s part of why the Bill Drills — just shoot and observe, let the brain and eyes just see what’s there and accept “this is as much as you need”. I get acceptable hits, so I just have to keep trusting myself. I think dry fire is actually backfiring on me in this regard, because there everything winds up being “perfect” and you don’t get the feedback of where the shot actually went.
  3. Grip the hell out of the gun and keep focused on that front sight. That last Bill Drill was more of a complete mag dump – 17 rounds, and I just clamped down and kept focused on the front sight. When it was where it needed to be, pressed the trigger. That .25 split was pretty constant through the entire run.

Anyways, things to really work on:

  • One shot draws. This will help me move, get on the gun, get it out, get it to the target quickly, and press off a smooth shot. Call the shot, allow the sight alignment to be acceptable enough for the distance. In fact, if there’s any one thing I work on in dry practice, it should probably be this. Work to consistently hit at least a 1.5 second par time, from concealment.
  • One-handed shooting. I haven’t done much on this in a while, and obviously have regressed.
  • Set up multiple dry targets and work on transitions. Again, speed.
  • Working on reloads wouldn’t be bad either. Again, speed.

There are other things I can do, but that will keep me for a while.

KR Training – 2014-05-10 – BP2/DPS1 Quick Hits

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

It’s tough to beat those days when you help people become more able, more confident in themselves, to overcome sticking-points in their lives. It’s really cool to watch it unfold. Student comes to class, starts out rather unsure of themselves, then are rockin’ it and giddy-thrilled after a few hours of hard work.

Had one of those days this past Saturday at KR Training. We had a Basic Pistol 2 (which is being evolved into “Defensive Pistol Essentials”) and a Defensive Pistol Skills 1. People of varying backgrounds and demographics, some came for one class, but many stayed for both. The weather was great, tho certainly we can tell we’re creeping into summertime.

Drink water. Wear sunscreen.

A few points for those in class (and to anyone willing to read this):

  • Marksmanship still matters. Yes, classes like this introduce you to the concept that time matters, speed matters — you don’t have all day to get comfortable and peel off a shot whenever you feel ready and able. But the fastest miss matters not. You must work to get acceptable hits.
    • At this stage if you need to slow down to ensure acceptable hits, then do so. Speed will come.
    • On the same token, some of you are making such tight groups that you can afford to speed up little more. It’s OK to let those groups open up a bit, as long as they remain in the target area (e.g. that 6″ circle). Speed up 10% over what you’re doing now, then work to get the groups back down in size at that increased speed. Repeat until you’re acceptably both fast and accurate.
  • Work on the simultaneous motion: pressing gun out, pressing trigger in. This is how you can “go faster without going faster“.
  • Trigger press (control) is vital. Dry fire practice all the things we did in class. In fact, if any of you were paying attention during DPS1, I went to demo a drill, there wasn’t a round in the chamber, and I watched my front sight dip — yeah, I need more practice too. 🙂

Thank you all for coming out and spending your time with us.

KR Training – 2014-05-03 – BP1 Quick Hits

/ hsoi

The month of May started off with a Basic Pistol 1 class. We’ve seen a slight drop-off in BP1 enrollment given the shift in the market and climate, so originally I was going to teach the class solo to a small group. However, we had last minute sign ups, Tom Hogel joined me, and we had a good class of 8 students, with the majority of the class being women. We had young and old, a range of backgrounds — folks, you just cannot stereotype gun owners and people who are willing to take responsibility for themselves.

Class rolled well. While a key stress of Basic Pistol 1 is about “gun fit”, it was quite prevalent in this particular class. We had numerous people with small hands, and common handguns like a Glock 19 just would not fit. In fact, while we try to get folks to shoot as many guns as possible during the “buffet” section of class, numerous students didn’t need to bother trying a lot of guns because it was evident the gun would not work for them at all. The Smith & Wesson M&P Shield ended up being a fair fit for a lot of folks, but then they saw the trade-off with smaller guns transmitting more felt-recoil. Everything’s a trade-off.

For those in class (or those not, but shopping for a first gun), please give a read to this handgun guide. It talks about the factors that really matter, like proper fit. Because if the gun fits, it becomes easier to shoot, more fun to shoot, which means you’ll shoot more, practice more, get better, and that’s what it’s all about.

All in all, class was good. Thank you all for coming out, and to Mother Nature for the good weather.

As an aside, the class was extra special to me because one of the students was Oldest. He’s always had an interest in guns, but it was casual. He’s recently grown his interest, and while he knew a bunch of the things that we teach in BP1, it was good for him to get the formal class (and certificate). He helped me set up and tear down, and was a great assistant all day. After class was over, he and I went through the buffet together — it was the first time he shot some larger calibers, and shooting a .357 Magnum round out of a small S&W 640 was an eye-opener for him. 🙂  We had a late lunch at the Elm Creek Cafe, then hung out until the sun started to go down. Karl’s been seeing some feral hogs around the ranch, so we hunkered down for a few hours to see if we could do something about that. Alas, no hogs nor coyotes taken, but that’s alright — it was just so nice to spend the day together.

KR Training – 2014-04-26 – DPS2/AT-2 Quick Hits

/ hsoi / 5 Comments

Summer’s coming, so:

  1. Drink Water
  2. Apply sunscreen
  3. Drink Water (h/t Caleb Causey)

We had no heat-related problems at KR Training this past Saturday, but it’s just time to remind folks to update their habits because yes… Texas summer is coming.

The past couple years saw a huge rush for foundation-level classes. Now it seems that everyone’s happy to have a gun and the basic knowledge of how to use it, so now folks want a little more. There’s certainly an uptick in the intermediate-level courses, both interest and enrollment. That we had another AT-2: Force-on-Force Scenarios was a great thing. It is wonderful to see people understanding the value of such a class and being willing to undertaking that education. In fact, one of the students in the AT-2 course commented that she didn’t want to take the class, but afterwards was very glad she did.

Speaking of enrollment, it was the usual: varied. Men and women, young and old, various socio-economic strata. Yeah, you just keep trying to stereotype gun owners and people that understand and are willing to undertake responsibility for themselves.

As for the classes themselves? Things went pretty well. Here’s a couple points I’ll highlight for students.

#1 – Marksmanship still matters.

Yes, being “combat accurate” is a thing (tho I don’t care for that term). This isn’t bullseye shooting for sure, this isn’t about trying to get the tightest group possible. But you still have to get within a reasonable area (e.g. 6″ circle). You still need to hit what you’re needing to hit — you can’t just throw lead and hope for the best.

This all goes back to the notion of “(un)acceptable hits“.

Trigger press, sight alignment, these things matter. Speed matters too, but a fast miss doesn’t do you any good. If you have to go a half-second slower but you can nail it every time? Then go slower, nail it, and in time the speed will come.

#2 – Plan and figure things out beforehand.

This is likely one of the biggest lessons to come out of the Force-on-Force work. If you have never thought about your plans, what to do if X happens, when X happens is the worst time to try to figure things out. Maybe you will be able to, but it’s going to eat up precious time.

But if you’ve been around this Earth long enough, you likely understand the phrase about how proper prior planning and preparation prevents piss poor performance. The same holds here. Whether that’s talking with your spouse and children about what to do should the flag fly, how to handle in-home action (e.g. what room is the “safe room” and how to go about getting there), secret phrases (“We need to leave, now” or “Pineapple Pineapple!”), figuring this stuff out ahead of time helps. In fact, being involved in the FoF scenarios themselves gives you some ideas and plans — “Hey, I’ve seen this before”. It doesn’t have to be a real encounter either (the power of visualization comes into play here).

I hope all the students had a great day. I enjoyed working the shoot house again. We continue to refine our work there, and feedback from students is positive.

Thank you all for coming out. Hope to see you at the range again soon.

Drink water!

 

Applying 1A to 2A

/ hsoi / 9 Comments

David Kopel, an adjunct professor of advanced Constitutional law, has published a paper examining how SCOTUS has used the First Amendment for guidance on Second Amendment questions.

You can read a summary/overview here.

The full paper can be found here. Here’s the abstract

As described in Part I of this article, the Supreme Court has strongly indicated that First Amendment tools should be employed to help resolve Second Amendment issues. Before District of Columbia v. Heller, several Supreme Court cases suggested that the First and Second Amendments should be interpreted in the same manner. Heller and McDonald v. City of Chicago applied this approach, using First Amendment analogies to resolve many Second Amendment questions.

Part II of this Article details how influential lower court decisions have followed (or misapplied) the Supreme Court’s teaching. Of course, precise First Amendment rules cannot necessarily be applied verbatim to the Second Amendment. Part III outlines some general First Amendment principles that are also valid for the Second Amendment. Finally, Part IV looks at how several First Amendment doctrines can be used in Second Amendment cases, showing that some, but not all, First Amendment doctrines can readily fit into Second Amendment jurisprudence.

I have not yet had a chance to read the full paper, but I did want to comment on a related matter I was thinking about prior to learning of this paper.

The notion of “if it saves just one life, then it’s worth it”.

I was reading this article and it trotted out the “just one life is worth it” trope. Yes, the article is from the NRA-ILA so it has an expected slant, but it got me thinking.

Is this really valid reasoning?

Can we apply this reasoning to other Constitutionally protected rights, such as those listed in the First Amendment? And would those so willing to apply this trope to 2A be willing to apply it to 1A?

Let’s consider cyberbullying. Consider the numerous children that have committed suicide or violently “acted out” as a result of cyberbullying. How can we prevent cyberbullying? Well, it does seem that banning computers or banning the Internet is never brought up as a solution, but if there was no access to computers or the Internet — if they were banned — then certainly “cyber” would cease to exist and so too would cyberbullying.

If it saves just one life, isn’t that worth it?

Isn’t curtailing free religion, free speech, free press, free association — because it could save just one life — worth it?

Well, isn’t it worth it?

Have a reason

/ hsoi

I know.

“It’s cool.”

But so what? What does it really gain you? What true purpose does it serve?

In his book, Strength, Life, Legacy, Paul Carter writes about having a reason for everything:

Every movement, set, rep, volume, frequency, everything you do, you should know WHY you are doing it. Are you doing this because someone said you should, or are you doing it because someone said you should be doing it? If they did, did they tell you why you should be doing it?

When you sit down to write out your routine and your programming, everything should have a reason for being on that piece of paper. And it shouldn’t be vague, like “I do this because I wanna get jacked.” That’s not really a clear cut reason.

I bench press because I need to build my bench for competition. I do inclines after that because I have found that inclines help my bench press very much. I get very good carryover from it.

I do pause squats to build my bottom position strength.

I do block deadlifts and shrugs because block deads have helped me off the floor as do shrugs (yes shrugs have helped me off the floor). This is where I am weak in the deadlift.

I do some curls because it helps keep my elbows feeling good.

I do ab work because I compete beltless, and I know my abs need to be very strong.

That’s basically my whole competition routine breakdown. Everything I do has a very particular reason for being in there. If you have movements in your routine, have a reason for each one being in there. Otherwise why is it in there?

Always ask yourself these kinds of questions in order to help make yourself a better programmer and planner.

Yeah, it’s about powerlifting, but it applies to anything in life.  If you are doing something, you should have a specific, known, and articulable reason for it.

I’m going to apply it to firearms.

During classes at KR Training, we see all sorts of equipment selection, we see people that come from having other training backgrounds. We question people as to why they have this equipment, or why they do some skill in some way. This isn’t to prove that our way is right and theirs is wrong, it’s about ensuring there is a solid reason. I can think of two illustrations.

I remember we had a student that had a lot of training from another school. At that school, they taught to always rack the slide. Yes, this often meant they ejected a good round. We asked why he did what he did; “because it’s what I was taught”. Of course, but why? “To ensure there’s always a round in the chamber.” So far, so good, but didn’t you know there was one? “Yes, but it doesn’t matter because always doing it eliminates the need and time consumed doing a diagnostic check.” Fair enough. He understood the trade-off of losing the round (and being “down by 1”), and he knew that in a more administrative situation to just do things like press-checking. But when he was “in the fight”, it was a far simpler mode of operation to just always rack it and ingrain that motor habit, instead of having diagnostic branching and decision making. That’s not how we do it, but he knew what he was doing, why he was doing it, the trade-offs, was willing to accept the trade-offs, and basically had a thoughtful decision instead of blindly following tacticool dogma. No problem there, man.

We have seen various types of equipment, including those ultra-minimal holsters that are nothing more than a clip of kydex that covers the trigger guard, with a string attached so the kydex breaks away when you draw the gun. OK, why do you use this equipment? What does it gain you? What are you losing? Is this the best equipment for a class (you’ll be drawing and reholstering numerous times; is this going to facilitate or inhibit class)? Outside of class, how do you expect to reholster? If you did have to draw your gun in self-defense, how much fiddle-farting are you going to have to do to reholster that gun (because you will need to)? and do you think you’ll always have a nice, calm opportunity to do so? Let’s not get into the SERPA holster either…

In the end, there’s not always One True Right Answer to things. Those little clips may wind up being the right answer given your particular daily circumstances. Me, I don’t like carrying really small guns, nor do I like changing my carry gun to match my pursue or the weather. But time to time it happens that circumstances force me to make choices I wouldn’t normally make. At least I can explain and articulate my choices and reasons.

Don’t take this as a dis on your personal choices. In fact, don’t let ego get involved in the first place. Make sure you have solid, articulable reasons for your decisions and choices. Make sure they are helping you achieve your goals.

On hearing protection – learn from my mistakes

/ hsoi

Oh what a difference there is in hearing protection.

There’s no question I’ve lost some of my hearing — just ask my wife. 😉  The main culprit in my life is loud music, but motorcycles and guns haven’t helped. On the guns front, I just got a major upgrade in preserving what hearing I have left.

I used to just have thick passive ear muffs. Offered like 33-34 NRR, worked nicely, but of course, you can’t hear very well — which is the point, but did make things difficult when in classes or teaching and you need to hear and give range commands.

So I bought a pair of Pro Ears Predator Gold. Why these? Because Pro Ears are top of the line. But I got the “slim cup” model because if I was going to spend that much, I wanted something I could use with any firearm. At the time, I was doing more long-gun shooting, so this made sense. Since then tho, I’ve found that I pretty much stick with handguns. But more so, a vast majority of time I’m around guns it’s during a class when there could be up to a dozen handguns going off at the same time, rapidly, many rounds, and yeah, that gets loud.

So something like the Predators, with only about 26 NRR, are OK, but not the most protection you can get.

What made it worse? After all the sun, sweat, sunscreen, etc. the cup pads were getting hard. With the pads getting hard, that meant they didn’t hold to my head as snuggly as fresh pads would. Furthermore, with both my seeing glasses and then shooting protection glasses, the arms of the glasses go under the muff cup pads, which breaks that seal even more. I had noticed over the past year that I didn’t always like being in classes, too close to the line. I’d be flinching and finding that there was just too much noise coming in.

I finally got off my duff and ordered a new set of ears: the Pro Ears Pro Tac Mag Gold. They say they have 30 NRR, but I’ve seen this model also listed at 33 and 34, so who knows… maybe minor design changes over the years? I finally got to wear them in classes a few weeks ago, and gee if I wasn’t happier!

The cup pads were soft, and conformed quite well to my head.

The band was pretty tight, and really held the cups in place and pressed things firmly against my head. Not too firm that it hurt, but firm enough to ensure a good seal. This along with the fresh pads helped mitigate the glasses issues.

The extra NRR? Well, I’ll just say I barely noticed the gunfire, in terms of it “hurting” my hearing. Awesome!

I got this particular model because they can accept CR123A batteries. That’s nice for me since I have enough things using that style of battery, I don’t have to have a special load of “N” size batteries just for my hearing protection. They do warn this takes up a little more cup space, but it was not a problem for me. In fact, I always felt the cups were too shallow in the Predators for me, which may have helped cause some of my problems because 1. it meant less snuggness against the face, 2. if there was physical contact, it could be transmitting the sound waves right down to my eardrum anyways.

Now, the Tac model inverts the cups to help with cheek weld. Well, maybe YOU can do it, but I tried and it was just a fail. So I flipped my cups over (easy to snap off and on). Sure the logo is upside down, but who cares.

So folks, a few lessons:

  1. Get the best hearing protection you can. You spent all that money on a great gun to help protect your life. But to have your life and lose your hearing wouldn’t be so hot. So, protect it and don’t skimp. I’ll still keep my Predators around for long-gun use, but using them will be exception and not the rule.

  2. Keep the hearing protection in good shape. Replace the pads, keep fresh batteries around, give it a wipe-down before you shove it back in your range bag, and so on. Take care of your investment.

 

Engagement Distances

/ hsoi / 6 Comments

The April 2014 Rangemaster newsletter discusses engagement distances of private citizen self-defense incidents. You should read the whole article (it’s only a page long), but here’s a key take-home:

We have had over 60 student involved shootings. Of those, two incidents occurred at less than 3 yards. One involved intentional physical contact between the shooter and the offender, the other involved purely accidental contact. The vast majority of these shootings occurred at distances between 3 yards and 7 yards, with the bulk of those at 3 to 5 yards. So, we see that the typical self-defense shooting is well beyond arm’s-length and may be past the length of your car. The average American sedan is 16 feet long. That is approximately 5 yards. My Silverado pickup is a little over 18 feet long, or 6 yards. This is way beyond arm’s-length.

Another useful thing is a graph Tom made:

Now consider that. 92.1% of his student incidents were in the 3-7 yard range! That’s certainly not “arms length”.

Here’s another point to consider.

I was recently listening to a trainer/instructor giving some shooting advice. He said something to the effect of learning to shoot at 25 yards, because if you can do it there, you can do it at closer distances. I take some issue with that statement.

Now, I understand where he’s coming from, because generally speaking getting acceptable hits from 25 yards is a harder task than getting acceptable hits at 3 yards. And if you can do a harder version of a task, you can probably also do the easier version of the task. So I get what he’s after and I don’t totally disagree with him.

But here’s the thing.

It’s harder.

If I’m teaching someone to shoot, I am not going to set a target at 25 yards and expect them to hit it. No, I’m going to start them out at 3, 5, or 7 yards (depending what the range will let me do, the closer the better) because I want the student to succeed. If the first thing the student does is fail, that doesn’t bode well for their ego, nor their desire to keep coming back to learn (nor their perception of you as a teacher). If they can see “yeah, I can do this!”, then you slowly build up to a higher difficulty level. Build their confidence, build their skill and ability. This is how you teach, and how most people are receptive to teaching and learning.

It also brings me back to my discussions on minimum competency. If I need to get someone going with the minimum skillset that gives them the most payoff when weighed against the most likely circumstances and situations they could find themselves in, then I want to work them in that 0-5 yard, 0-7 yard, maybe out to 10 yards range. If the student’s goal is to learn how to use a pistol for self-defense, if the overwhelming majority of incidents happen in that 3-7 yard range, then at least at the onset the student should learn to function in that context and the teacher should verify that the student can function in that context!

Furthermore, it is a different skill to shoot at 25 yards (go read Brian Enos’ book).

While it’s unfortunate that Memphis is such a violent city (read another article in the 2014-04 Rangemaster newsletter about “Violent Crime Reporting”), it does provide us with a fair amount of data we can use to better understand self-defense incidents, what happens during them, and how good citizens can respond to them.  Yes, learn to shoot well at 25 yards, but start first at 5 yards.

(thanx to Tom Hogel for the graphic, and the inspiration to write this article).